I came across an article in Newsweek this week that I felt deserved to be shared.  It’s title is simple: “How The GOP Sees It” – an in-depth analysis of the key issues on healthcare, the economy and terrorism.

I will post some excerpts here but you can (and should) read the entire article wither in the March 1, 2010 issue of Newsweek or online at http://www.newsweek.com/id/233918.

How the GOP Sees It

What Republicans would do if given carte blanche to run the country.

By Katie Connolly, Michael Hirsh and Weston Kosova | NEWSWEEK

"We've offered to work with the president all year. We've been shut out, shut out, and shut out." —House GOP leader John Boehner

Such is the lament of the party out of power in Washington. Republicans on Capitol Hill say they have many good ideas and want to join with President Obama and the Democrats to alleviate the country's problems. They want to collaborate on a health-care bill, a jobs bill, a clean-energy bill. But they can't, because the Democrats—intent on pushing through a radical agenda that is out of touch with real Americans—won't listen to them. Republicans want to help the president succeed, but he won't let them.

This isn't true, of course—any more than it was true when the Democrats said the same thing as they dedicated themselves to thwarting George W. Bush. In zero-sum Washington, members of the opposition party have little incentive to help the president, especially if it means the credit for their actions could accrue to him and not them. If politics is the art of compromise, then politics as practiced in the capital is the art of preventing compromise at all costs.

A handful of Republicans—Sen. Olympia Snowe on health care, Sen. Bob Corker on financial reform—have tried on their own to break from this tit-for-tat and deal with Democrats. They see what most politicians know but don't talk about: that on many issues, the differences between the two sides are not nearly so great as the party bosses would have us believe. Too often it is politics, not policy, that stymies progress. Certainly Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, scornful of Republican ideas and motives, have not gone out of their way to solicit Republican views. And the GOP leadership has made known its displeasure at moderates' overtures to the other side. Some of Snowe's colleagues treated her like an apostate. Corker has been frustrated in his efforts. "We've probably had the most selfish generation in Congress … in modern times," says Corker. "It's beyond belief to me that the deficit commission did not pass."

JOBS

For Republican leaders, there is one way to create new jobs that trumps all others: tax cuts. Leave more money in the hands of business owners, Republicans say, and they will use it to place orders—stimulating job growth—or hire new workers themselves. "We're not going to look to Washington to create the jobs," says GOP Rep. Kevin McCarthy, summing up the Republican liturgy. Most in the party (like most Americans, according to polls) want nothing to do with another expensive stimulus that would smack of expanded government. Yet the GOP has also rejected Democratic bills that tried to lure Republicans by including significant tax cuts. Earlier this year Republican Sen. Charles Grassley reached an agreement with Democratic Sen. Max Baucus on an $85 billion jobs bill. It combined small-business tax breaks with an injection of money for the Highway Trust Fund, more unemployment insurance, and agriculture emergency assistance. Other Republicans resisted Grassley's entreaties to sign on, even though the bill was adorned with the tax-credit extensions for businesses that Republicans wanted.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wound up withdrawing the bill the same day he offered it. Democrats had complained that Republicans were going to slam them for the expensive bill, despite the GOP gifts it contained. Reid replaced it with a meager $15 billion version, made up mostly of tax breaks for businesses that Democrats and Republicans agree on. But such small-bore efforts aren't likely to make much of a difference. That leaves the Republicans in a tough spot. Obama is out there boasting that the stimulus plan the GOP rejected saved jobs in the worst months of the recession. Now Republican leaders risk being seen as lining up against any bill that contains spending to promote job growth, even if it also includes the tax cuts they favor. To avoid the appearance that they're merely obstructing, they'll have to come up with something better than that.

THE DEBT

How big a problem is the $1.4 trillion budget deficit and the ever-expanding national debt? (Just FYI, the debt now tops $12 trillion and grows an average of $3.87 billion each day.) Pose that question to five economists and prepare for five different answers. Some believe a large debt burden could cripple the economy and scare off foreign creditors. Others say that the numbers, though scary to look at, are still manageably low as a percentage of the overall economy. Democrats worry that attacking the deficit too harshly now could result in a double-dip recession. Small-government Republicans come down squarely on the side of smaller deficits. It is an issue that goes to their deepest principles, and appeals both to their base and to the growing tea-party movement they hope to win over. Cut spending, reduce government, and restore America's strength.

Sounds great. Except that no one in either party has figured out how to do that in a way that won't cause a rebellion among the voters. Republicans attack Obama's deficit-ballooning budget every chance they get, but the GOP leadership has put forward no serious proposals that would slow, let alone reverse, the growth of government while still providing everything we demand from Washington. (Remember that George W. Bush, an avowed small-government conservative, presided over a massive increase in the size of government.) Politicians can talk all they want about eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse. But the truth is, we could pull the plug on the entire federal bureaucracy and it would barely make a difference. The real problem is runaway costs in three sacred entitlement programs: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Until something is done to bring them under control before the baby boomers start retiring en masse, the rest is just talk.

HEALTH CARE

When President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress last September to push for health-care reform, Republicans engaged in a quiet protest. They brought along copies of what they said was a GOP health-care bill, and waved them at the president to show that they too had a plan, and it was better than his. It made for good TV, but in reality there was no unified GOP bill; the Republicans hadn't actually agreed on an alternative to the Democratic reforms they were working so hard to kill.

Since then, House Republicans have come forward with a plan to rival the Democratic versions now sitting idle in the House and Senate. It has a catchy name—the Common Sense Health Care Reform and Affordability Act—and its authors proudly say that they got the job done in a mere 219 pages of Washington-speak; the House Democratic version weighs in at 1,990 pages. The GOP bill would prevent insurers from dropping people from their rolls if they got sick; ensure that people with preexisting conditions can get insurance; and require insurance companies to let children stay on their parents' plans until they reach their mid-20s.

Nothing new there. All those provisions are part of the Democratic bills. But that's where the similarities end. The two parties have different goals in reforming health care. Democrats believe that more government regulation of the health-insurance industry is needed to make sure just about everyone can get coverage while at the same time controlling rising costs. Republicans want the opposite: to free health-insurance companies from regulation and allow market forces to bring down costs and provide affordable insurance options.

To do this, Republicans would allow insurers to sell policies across state lines and encourage small businesses to band together to leverage their bargaining power. Democrats aren't necessarily opposed to this idea. "That is why we created the national insurance exchange," says Democratic Rep. John Dingell, who argues that creating a marketplace where both individuals and small businesses can shop for insurance plans "will spread risks, reduce costs, and help everyone get into the system." But there are big differences in how the two parties envision this working. Democrats favor one vast nationwide pool and would require insurers to offer plans that meet government minimum requirements for coverage and costs so the industry can't steer the old and sick into more expensive plans with stingier benefits.

Republicans see that as intrusive government meddling. They want a system of small, self-selecting pools of people with similar needs. The free market will see to it that insurance companies meet demand, they say—a claim that is met with skepticism by many economists and health-care analysts, who note that it hasn't worked that way in places where such ideas have been tried. "Republicans trust the American people to do what's best for themselves, instead of turning decisions over to a bureaucrat," says Boehner's spokesman, Michael Steel.

Take genuine philosophical differences and layer on this sort of chest-thumping, and it's not hard to see why health-care reform, once considered a sure thing this year, now seems anything but. It's also not hard to see why the public is fed up. According to the new Newsweek Poll, Americans say they oppose Obama's health-care plan 51 to 37 percent. Yet they overwhelmingly favor its specific provisions:

73 percent want to require businesses to offer insurance; 78 percent are in favor of requiring insurance companies to cover everyone, regardless of their health; and 81 percent like the idea of insurance exchanges. Still, when those polled were told that those things are part of Obama's plan, support jumped just 10 percent.

The article goes on to discuss issues such as Foreign Policy, Terrorism and Education. It is a long read but well worth it.

The purpose of my brining this to you is simply to remind everyone there is always three sides to every story: yours, mine and the truth. The fact of the matter is simply – partisan politics have always been an issue from both sides.  It just happens to be particularly visible now due to a staunch position of resistance on a relatively hot topic to the nation.

Please read and freely discuss.

Peace.